


Standing Alone

by mystiri1



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-16
Updated: 2010-08-16
Packaged: 2017-10-11 03:04:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystiri1/pseuds/mystiri1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sephiroth faces Cloud, and makes a disturbing discovery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Standing Alone

It was inevitable that, sooner or later, they’d find each other. They’d come close so many times; sometimes all that prevented Cloud from finding him was that Sephiroth wanted to watch a little while longer, drinking in the sight of sad blue eyes and soft blond spikes, and he knew there would be other times for meetings and explanations.

He’d expected the anger. They’d not parted under the best of circumstances, and Sephiroth wasn’t without his own anger at the blond. He’d been ready to fight as well. It was part of who they were, and more than one fight had led to hot, furious sex afterwards. He’d not expected that when the odd coat he wore came off, a wing would be revealed: a black, leathery wing that perfectly opposed his own, like interlocking pieces of a puzzle. He felt a jolt of pure exultation run through him. This was right. This was where he belonged, here with him, and all the other things – past actions and hurtful words, fleeting anger and desperate struggles – none of that mattered when compared to the fact that they fit together, like two halves of a whole.

He hadn’t expected the dark-haired man who followed.

He’d seen him around, of course. The brunet was all over Radiant Garden, fixing things, fighting Heartless, commanding. Leon, he’d heard him called. Young, still, but he was doing an adequate job, and Sephiroth had admired his combat skills more than once. Not as good as those he’d commanded, but few were. And it was true that sometimes he saw him in Cloud’s company, but the blond more usually kept to himself, much as he always had.

But this meeting, here in the Depths, he’d expected would be just the two of them. And when Cloud started toward him, the other was forgotten until the rasp of a sword being drawn had them both turning to see him standing there, blade ready.

There was a brief argument between Cloud and the newcomer. Cloud was objecting to Leon fighting, and Sephiroth, able to hear every word even from his distant position, agreed: this was not his fight. He had no place here at all. But as they exchanged words he began to pick up on something unsaid. When they turned back to him, Leon still prepared to fight and Cloud not arguing, it struck him what it was.

After all, he’d once had someone who would not let him fight alone, either.

Rage swept through him. He’d waited so long, needed so badly, and now this stranger would deny him his other half?

The fight was fast, and furious, and Leon truly had no place in it. He could not begin to match the speed and strength of them, and Sephiroth and Cloud were focused on each other with an intensity that could cut through steel. That didn’t mean the silver-haired warrior had forgotten the cause of his anger, and a casual swing of the blade that Cloud dodged easily sliced across Leon’s torso, cutting deep into his abdomen in a wound that would prove fatal within minutes.

“Leon!”

That cry, torn from Cloud’s throat as he leapt backwards, wing flaring, told Sephiroth all he needed to know. The brunet was his real enemy, the real threat to his goal. His hand clenched on the hilt of his sword, and he took a deep breath. He’d finish the man off, and then they could stop wasting time.

Only Cloud wasn’t continuing the fight. He was moving towards the fallen figure, halting when his feet touched the spreading pool of blood. A strangled sound emerged from his throat as he took in the wound, far beyond his meagre ability to heal. And then he was turning back, and the look in his eyes cut more deeply than any blade ever had.

Hatred.

Rage and pain and disgust and scorn and hatred, all directed at him.

Sephiroth felt emotion twist his face, too much to hide behind his usual confident mask, and he slammed magic outwards, hitting the blond with a sleep spell that dropped him in his tracks. But the tears he’d feared didn’t come. Monsters didn’t cry, and he knew that now; understood now that that was all he was, a monster. That look, coming from eyes that had once smiled at him, ripped away the belief he could ever be anything more. He could feel a keening noise, trapped in his throat and unable to escape, his chest too tight to breathe.

He took a slow step forward, then another, until he was standing right next to Cloud, but he couldn’t look down. Couldn’t look at him. He hesitated, trying to force himself because it was ridiculous to behave so irrationally, so cowardly. In the end, he continued moving, and when he did look down it was at a face contorted by pain, grey eyes struggling open to glare at him with a ferocity that belied their owner’s mortality.

He stared, cat-green eyes meeting that gaze as if nothing was wrong, his face once again impassive, frozen. Magic lashed out once again, and he could see the defiance as the other man refused to give an inch even in the face of his own death. It lingered as those eyes finally closed. With a snarl, Sephiroth forced more magic into him, and the fallen body arched even as flesh knitted back together with startling speed.

He stared a moment longer at the body, pale and unconscious from blood loss but still breathing, then turned away from both of them, his wing flexing in a preparatory down-stroke. He fixed his eyes on the horizon, and launched himself into the air. He had no place here.

No place anywhere.

 


End file.
